A fine-tuned on-site search engine can drive up conversions and page views. Wal-Mart Stores said its Wal-Mart Labs research and technology hub built a new search engine for Walmart.com from the ground up. The engine relies on semantic search technology to anticipate the intent of a shopper's search, similar to Amazon.com's engine.

After a newspaper's PageRank dropped from seven to three in search engine query results, an employee of the news agency wrote Google's spam guru Matt Cutts to ask why. Comparing it to Amazon's recommendations, he wrote back explaining that a site's PageRank can drop by 30% to 50% if it violates Google's quality guidelines by selling links that pass PageRank.

Video chat from long tables in boardrooms and meeting rooms, where employees stared at a large screen on one side of the room, initially emerged as a way to reduce travel expenses -- but tech companies have figured out a way to make video conferencing a mobile and social tool, integrating it into a variety of business applications.

In the moment. That's what mobile apps address -- a quick and targeted search in the moment. Mobile apps have become the consumer-facing front end of companies on small devices that sit in the pockets and purses of millions of people. And if integrated correctly with search, they become the first step to a prosperous relationship between brands and consumers.

Making the connection between search and search retargeting, followed by search retargeting in ad exchanges, mobile applications, and connected TVs will become the next phase for search engine marketing.

Search marketers scrambling to keep up with Google's Penguin algorithm updates will also need to become more aware of working with data -- lots of it. I wrote in July about the new role of chief marketing technology officers. Now BlueKai has created a profile of the CTMO based on the latest available research and data.

The launch of paid product listing ads in Google Shopping prompted Didit to acquire Inceptor, according to Didit Founder Kevin Lee, asserting that "Google's launch of that product has huge implications for retailers."

Some 17% of respondents participating in the SEOmoz 2012 survey spend more than $1,000 per month on tools and software. The largest segment -- at 17.5% -- spends $101 to $300 per month, followed by 10.5% at between $301 and $500.

Are Google's engineers smart enough to sort through several technical challenges to make search the virtual assistant of the future? Calling the Web "the biggest repository of human knowledge," Amit Singhal, SVP and Google fellow, tells us about the more than 30 trillion URLs on the Web -- and says that on any given day Google crawls more than 20 billion sites.

Online comparison shopping continues to drive growth in ecommerce and success for paid-search ads. School and college shoppers this year expect to spend $83.8 billion on back-to-school clothing, electronics and more, according to a recent study.